


Plus One

by orphan_account



Series: Teen Wolf ficlets [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-High School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 04:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4125324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was with a certain sense of inevitability that Lydia pulled over the guest list and saw “McCall, Melissa” right next to “plus one” in the confirmed column. Unless Ms. McCall had suddenly developed way more of a social life than she’d possessed during Lydia’s high school years, Lydia had a feeling she knew who that plus one would be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plus One

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, unbeta'd and written in the space of an hour (because of [this picture](http://vforeverithing.tumblr.com/post/106669350957)), so please don't take too seriously. Also if you follow me on tumblr you've probably already seen this.
> 
> Teen Wolf doesn't belong to me.

She’d meant to go through with it.

All these years of going back and forth and waiting and then deciding not to wait and then ending up waiting again without having made the conscious decision to do so... they’d taken a toll. She kept telling herself that she was Lydia Martin, for God’s sake, and she made men wait for  _her._ It was the truth, just not the whole of it. Men did wait for her, and sometimes she decided to let them get what they’d been waiting for, but she rarely revealed the interior landscape of her heart. The ones who were interested in  _that_ often quit trying to see it, willing to take what she offered for fear of that offer being rescinded, and the ones who didn’t quit out of fear quit out of anger, as if they’d somehow had the  _right_ to know her true feelings. Very few people had that right.

Lydia was nothing if not discriminating.

Which was the most frustrating part of this entire...  _thing:_ it had sneaked up on her when she wasn’t paying attention, worried about (what else?) death stalking the residents of Beacon Hills, particularly its high school’s population, and her inability to stop it despite the warnings she received. It had crept into her heart as she listened to the voices mourning in the halls. It had taken residence in her  _self_ when warm fingers intertwined with her own and an earnest voice promised in a near-whisper to do what needed to be done, lifting her shoulders as the responsibility she’d assumed became a shared burden. By the time she’d realized what had happened, it had been too late.

Pretending she still hadn’t noticed was a cold comfort. It was all she had, though, so she stuck with it. Right past graduation and straight on into college.

What made it extra-ridiculous was that Kira and she were roommates from day one, set up in an off-campus apartment with such wildly different schedules that they rarely saw each other. Because he’d decided to go to community college first, Kira and Scott also rarely saw each other, and had mutually decided to be friends rather than lovers before six months passed. Lydia rounded up the requisite breakup accessories and ate more than her fair share of the ice cream while huddled next to Kira on the couch. She told Kira she was crying because of the movie she’d rented, instead of the fact that she was only going to be seeing Scott when she bothered to go home on breaks.

That had been a year and a half ago. This was the first time she’d been back to Beacon Hills since.

Lydia had decided to stay at her grandparents’ house rather than play the custody game with her mom and dad. The compromise made her father happy, since they were his parents, and made her mother happy because Lydia wasn’t with her father. Win-win. Except Lydia discovered within a day of her arrival that her grandmother was hosting a benefit party for some charitable cause having to do with the hospital system, and it was black tie only. Of course Lydia would be coming. Of course she had something to wear.

It was with a certain sense of inevitability that Lydia pulled over the guest list and saw “McCall, Melissa” right next to “plus one” in the confirmed column. Unless Ms. McCall had suddenly developed way more of a social life than she’d possessed during Lydia’s high school years, Lydia had a feeling she knew who that plus one would be. She determined that she would do what she could to dazzle him and settle the question of his interest once and for all.

The night of the benefit, Melissa McCall walked into the house alone. The chair beside her stayed vacant at the dinner table. Lydia managed to edge her out of a conversational group at one point and ask, after the niceties, “Was Scott supposed to come?”

“Yes, though I don’t know why I bothered to list him considering we both knew it was a long shot he’d get to show up.” Melissa shrugged in resignation. “He’s got to save the world. You know how it goes. He really wanted to see you, though, so I did the plus-one.”

Lydia kept her expression bland as she nodded in understanding, but she begged off early and ascended the stairs to her bedroom with heavy steps, leaving the noise of the party behind as she eased the pins from her hair. Once she’d gotten to her room and pulled down the zipper of the dress, her impetus deserted her. She sat on the edge of a nightstand with a sigh. It wasn’t until she knew for a certainty that he wasn’t coming that she’d comprehended how much emotional effort she’d put into her expectations.

The voices spoke to her, but in wordless murmurs. Even they had little to say, tonight. None of them clamored for her attention—a relief, considering the reason for Scott’s absence.

A quiet knock at the door jerked her attention away from the sounds only she could hear. “It’s okay, Grandma,” she called. “I promise I’m not sick.”

“Can I come in?”

Of course it was Scott. Of course. Too disgusted with herself, and with him, to bother moving, she said, “Sure,” so quietly that if he’d been human he wouldn’t have heard.

He opened the door just enough to see her, then sidestepped in the room quickly and shut the door behind him, as if to protect her from whatever prying eyes might be in the hallway. “Are you okay?”

He looked so good in black tie that her heartbeat thudded into her throat, but she managed to keep her tone steady. “I should be asking you that question.” At his inquiring expression, she elaborated. “Your mom told me why you weren’t here.”

“Oh.” Scott waved away that consideration with a quick, uncharacteristically jerky motion. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

Lydia laughed, turning her face away to hide her expression. “No, it’s not. I might not have been home for a while, but I remember life in Beacon Hills better than that.”

He laughed too, but it sounded more genuine than hers. “Yeah, you’re right. But nobody died tonight, so I’m gonna call it a win.”

She dared to look at him again. “Perfectly reasonable.”

Her dress was gaping open in the back, and she could see his gaze darting to the expanse of her skin revealed before he jerked it back to her face. “You never answered my question.”

“No.” Lydia let the word hang there between them for a moment, mostly because she wasn’t sure what she was going to tell him.

Scott obviously wasn’t feeling patient. “No you’re not okay, or no you never answered the question?”

Ugh. Since when had she been wishy-washy in her dealings with the opposite sex?

Since it started mattering. Since it was Scott.

“I’m okay.” Having him in the same room was doing awful things to her body. Far from settling back in her chest, her heartbeat had picked up even more, and she was positive that if she tried to stand, her knees would give way beneath her. She clenched her hands together in her lap until her knuckles whitened, but at least the pressure hid their trembling.

“Are you  _sure_?” he asked, and the incredulity in his tone reminded her of all the things it was impossible to hide from a werewolf.

But she’d used up all her nerve just to walk down the steps tonight, and even the knowledge that in the morning she would be rolling her eyes at her own cowardice couldn’t make her admit the truth. She parted her lips, ready to send Scott on his way.

Somehow he’d crossed the room without her noticing—irritating wolf speed—and one hand closed over her fingers. “Lydia. I missed you.”

He was so brave. Scott was always  _so brave._ He never bothered to hide what he was feeling because he never feared the consequences enough to make the effort, and right now she could hear in his voice that he knew her secret, and she could tell exactly what she would see on his face if she could just muster up the wherewithal to look at it, but that sort of courage was his department, not hers. She kept her eyes directed toward her lap. That stopped working the instant he moved in front of her, crouching down to catch her gaze as he rested his other hand on her knee, but she could still smile at him as she answered. “Of course you did. Who else is going to tell you when death is on the way besides your favorite banshee? I mean, I’m assuming I _am_ your favorite; for all I know there are a dozen more you’ve found since I left and they’re all part of your pack—”

He interrupted that nonsense as if it were too ridiculous to hear. “No. I missed _you_.”

At some point during her high school tenure, Lydia had come to understand that she wasn’t, by objective standards, a very good person. Not because anyone had told her so, but through comparison with the best person she knew, who was Scott. She’d formed a half-conscious resolution to try to improve her character, and she liked to think in some ways she’d succeeded. If she had, it was because she’d had his example plus accruing some maturity along the way. That this person in particular missed her made her happier, even though it wasn’t a surprise. “I missed you too. It’s really good to see you. Alive, and okay.”

“What if I’m not okay?” She couldn’t think of anything to say in reply, so he asked again. “What if I’m not okay without you?”

Lydia couldn’t even smile, now, and she couldn’t look away as he continued.

“What if—what if breaking up with Kira was the worst thing, but then after a few months I realized that the second-worst thing was that I didn’t have a reason to see you anymore unless you came home? What if I started about a hundred emails and texts to you asking if you were coming back and then never sent them because I didn’t want to bug you in case you never were? What if I missed you so much that I dreamed I was talking to you about school and how your day went and asking you for help with pack stuff? What if I thought about you all the time? What then?”

Lydia realized she was gaping, and shut her mouth with a click before she came up with some words. “Well... then...” She could tell by his tiny smile that he knew what her answer would be, but she was too happy to be peeved about his certainty. Even the voices of the dead seemed to be holding their collective breath, waiting for her reply.

They had to wait a bit longer, because she needed to kiss him, and that took more time than she’d expected because Scott made a tiny noise in the back of his throat as if she’d hurt him and so of course she had to  _keep_ kissing him until she was positive she’d made it better. But then she pulled back and said, “Then I would say, ‘zip up the back of my dress, Scott, because you’re my plus-one and we’ve got a party to attend.’”


End file.
